Apr. 4
3:54 PM
State of the Moi, April 2011, Wherein the Smoke Clears, the Veil Lifts, and My Brain Regenerates
This last year has been one mean motherlicker, but now, at last, things have begun to calm down. I had intended to post back in January about the films and books I'd most enjoyed in 2010, interesting things I'd done over the last twelve months, that sort of thing, but time was anything but on my side. I had a host of medical nonsense go on in 2010 that I have no interest in hashing out here beyond saying that I am indeed more or less well of body (the Cold of March notwithstanding) again, and, now that I've completed a decent draft of a novel I've been working on for the past year, also well of mind.. Or rather, am becoming well--this novel, Hook and Cod, was much harder to write than anything else I've ever done, and I'm still rather out of sorts about it. My solution has been to take a few weeks off from even thinking about the damn thing, and so I'm currently catching up on all the things I've neglected over the past x months while playing with some new ideas--just the small ones for now, just the small ones. I still may get around to post about novels and story collections and films and music that I enjoyed in 2010 but for now a recap of some items of note will suffice, I hope:
First up, the Films of High Adventure column that I do with Molly Tanzer will resume at some point in April. More on that as it develops, but in the meantime Molly's been busy with her gig as managing editor of Fantasy Magazine and Lightspeed, both of which are always worth checking out. In particular, she just made a post about sundry Choose Your Own Adventure-related features over at Fantasy Magazine, as well as matters relating to a mutual friend of ours, one The Pod.
As for myself, I've been doing a few book reviews for Innsmouth Free Press--the first, for Livia Llewellyn's impressive debut collection Engines of Desire, is up here, and I'll be doing another for J.M. McDermott's grand novel Never Knew Another sometime in the near future.
I've also learned that my story "Liminal Medicine" will be appearing in IFP's anthology of modern Gothic ficiton Candle in the Attic Window. This new book should be out sometime later in the year, and in the meantime we're approaching the release of their Historical Lovecraft anthology, which I have a story in alongside Molly, Orrin Grey, E. Catherine Tobler, William Meikle, and Martha Hubbard, to name but a few. Through April 20th there's a 20% pre-sale discount, and it's already available for Kindle.
Jabberwocky 5 is now available, featuring stories and poetry by myself, Genevieve Valentine, Erik Amundsen, Berrien C. Henderson, Rose Lemberg, Shweta Narayan, and lots of others. This is, I believe, the last print issue of the magazine, which has switched to a online format.
I'll be attending the World Horror Convention in Austin, Texas, at the end of the month. I believe I'll be moderating a panel, as well as doing a reading, but more on that when I know for sure. Looking forward to seeing old friends, making new ones, all that jazz, and of course seeing Austin, which I've never before visited.
Reviews for The Enterprise of Death keep coming in, and interviews, guest blogs, and such keep going out. I'll post more later in the week, but for now some quick highlights:
Jason Heller at the Onion AV Club reviewed it, giving it an A-.
Sally Sapphire gave it a great review over at at Bibrary Bookslut.
And Mashal Zeringue invited me to put it to the Page 69 Test.
There will be more shortly, in particular a fun, lengthy interview and an essay about Niklaus Manuel Deutsch and the paintings of his that I reference in the novel, but this'll do for now, I should think. Someday soon I might even be caught up enough to make a post that isn't entirely self-indulgent! Maybe. What about you lot, anything borrowed, anything new?